


Crystal Closet

by Cards_Slash



Category: CW Network RPF, Supernatural RPF
Genre: Inspired by a Movie, M/M, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-24
Updated: 2012-11-24
Packaged: 2017-11-19 10:12:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/572166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cards_Slash/pseuds/Cards_Slash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jared's not gay but ever since Chad wrongfully outed him to the <i>entire world</i>, it feels like no matter what he does he can't prove that he's straight.</p><p>(aka, a J2 version of In & Out)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Jared found out that he was gay just about the same time that the whole world (or at least the part of the world that cared about these kinds of things) found out that he was gay. It was, by far, the most effective means ever to come out because within twenty minutes of him kicking the TV to shut it off (he couldn’t find the remote) and then turning around to stare at Alexis— _his girlfriend_ —everyone in the world knew that he was gay.

But back at the beginning it started like this:

Chad always called him so late at night it was early in the morning. Jared was a fan of early mornings but he could live without being woke up by Chad who more-or-less always sounded like he’d just run for six miles, smoked a seriously over-sized joint and sucked down a dozen cans of Jolt before he called. Still the ring tone always-always managed to wake him up because The Bloodhound Gang touching him in a bad way was enough to wake anyone up. (Why the hell he’d allowed Chad to pick his own ring tone was behind him—why he’d never deleted it was even more beyond him.)

“What?” he demanded of the phone and Chad and anything else that was responsible for him being awake at this time of morning and being friends with Chad.

“You have got to watch this interview I did—I’m telling you man, you’re going to love it.” He went on for twenty minutes after Jared stopped really listening about how hot the lady interviewing him was and how awesome the interview was and blah-blah-blah.

“Yeah, ok, I’ll watch it,” Jared mumbled into the phone.

Next morning he called Alexis because she was his girlfriend and he might someday marry her and really if there was anyone that should suffer through having to watch an interview that Chad did all on his own without supervision with him, it was her. It took a little wheedling and the promise of popcorn and dinner but he managed to convince her to be at his house in time to watch it with him.

So his big coming out party went like this:

“Why are we watching this again?” Alexis asked. She had a bowl of popcorn and the DVD (not the TV) remote in her hand while she shifted on his couch. He flopped back down next to her with the cable (but not the TV) remote and lifted his arm up so she could snuggle in close to him. “Chad does know that you just spent several months with him and that you don’t need to see him on the TV doesn’t he?”

Jared shrugged. “He says it’s a great interview and he wanted us to watch it.” (So that was not at all what Chad really said. After he went on about the interviewer being really hot, he let slip that he totally would have done her if not for the fact that he was trying really hard to work things out with his girlfriend(s) and couldn’t afford to get caught cheating with the media.) “It’ll only take a minute and then we can watch the movie.” 

Alexis sighed and set the remote down on the table before she settled in against him and they waited through the credits of Entertainment Tonight, some babble about other upcoming movies and celebrities with meltdown issues. Chad’s entire interview lasted maybe a minute but the host of the show kept insisting that he was going to reveal something huge about one of the cast members of House of Wax. Which—ok—didn’t mean anything because the fact that Paris Hilton once had a hangnail could be huge news to the media, so he wasn’t exactly anticipating that Chad would open his big-fat-mouth and say:

“Jared? Yeah, Jared’s like my brother, you know. My big gay brother. It’s cool though, I’ve always supported gay rights.”

Chad went on a tangent about how he supported all kinds of gay things. “Like rainbows,” Chad said, “and drag queens and stuff like that.” (The depths of Chad’s ignorance was actually physically painful to try to comprehend.) “Oh yeah, I mean he’s like full out homosexual—he won’t mind me saying it, we’re like brothers.”

Jared went from dumb-shock to the desperate need to turn the TV off right-that-second. The only problem with that was while he had a DVD remote and a cable remote and a stereo remote he didn’t have the one that turned the TV off. So he climbed over the table by the couch and slapped the TV and when that didn’t work he kicked it and it finally turned off.

When he turned back around Alexis was sitting forward on the couch giving him a wide-eyed stare with her hands in her lap and the bowl of popcorn sitting to the side on the cushion. “Jared?” she whispered.

“I’m not gay!” Jared shouted. He turned back to look at the TV hatefully and pushed his hands through his hair. “That _asshole_.”

“Well why would he say that you were—” Alexis’ very logical question was interrupted by the phone ringing and then his cell phone ringing and then her cell phone ringing. He was pretty sure that if anyone had been within driving distance they would have shown up at his door just to ring the doorbell. She sat on the couch and looked from one ringing phone to the other and put her hand across her phone on the couch before she looked up at him like he was going to have some kind of answer.

He grabbed the nearest phone—his cell phone—and cleared his throat and said, “hello?” He would have had a much better greeting but his brain was somewhere back about the time Chad had casually assured the media that when he said Jared was gay he didn’t mean like _happy_ (which he was) but like _homo_ (which he wasn’t). 

“Jared,” it was his _Mother_ , how the hell had she even know that Chad was going to have an interview on TV anyway. She said, “is there something you need to tell me, sweetie?” He loved his Mom the best out of anyone in the world but he could see her at the kitchen table with the ticking vein in her neck just pulsing overtime while his Dad sat next to her and held her hand so they could get through this difficult time together. “You know we’ll always love you son, no matter what.”

“Mom,” Jared said—the phone was ringing _again_ —“I’m not gay. Chad’s just…I don’t know what he is but he’s wrong. I’m not gay.”

“Son,” his father said when he took the phone, “you have to remember that Chad’s been in Hollywood longer than you—he might be on drugs.” That was quite frankly ridiculous because Chad probably was on drugs but it wasn’t because he’d been in Hollywood longer than Jared had been. He was pretty sure that was just Chad’s default programming. “Oh wait, your mother wants to talk to you again.”

“Honey, you know that I’ll always love you—no matter what.”

“Yeah Mom, you said that,” he said. Alexis was getting her coat on to leave and talking to her phone with an exasperated huff in her voice. “Hey just a minute.” He put the phone against his chest while the one in the kitchen kept ringing. “Hey, are you leaving?”

Alexis nodded, “I think you’re going to be busy for a while.”

“Jared, listen—it doesn’t matter what you do in the privacy of your bedroom. You can like women or men or even that bondage and sadomasochism stuff but honey,” and she got very serious now, “I want grandchildren.”

Oh for God’s sake, his whole life was falling down around him—and his mother wanted _grandchildren_.

“Yeah, Mom, I’ll get right on that,” Jared said. 

The phone was still ringing and he just wanted to go rip it out of the wall and throw it across the kitchen. His mother was quiet for a pause and then when she came back to speak she said, “ok, honey. Call me soon.” (And tell me you’ve gotten someone knocked up.) “I love you.”

Jared loved his mother too, he even told her that. Then he hung up the phone and it started ringing and going off with text messages while the kitchen phone just kept _going off_ and he stormed through the house to yank it right out of the wall and that left him with only the grating ring of the cell phone.

“Chad,” he said down at the phone (but it wasn’t Chad calling, it was one of his friends from high school who kept in touch), “you asshole.” Then he answered the call and a few of the text messages and assured everyone that desperately needed to know that he wasn’t gay.

\--

His agent called him the next morning (actually she’d called a few times overnight but he kept his phone turned off) and demanded that they have an emergency crisis management meeting. Jared figured that there were far more dangerous crises out in the world than his sudden public homosexuality but he agreed that he’d meet her at her office.

He got dressed in some jeans and a T-shirt and some sneakers and a beanie and pocketed his wallet and cell phone and grabbed his keys. It was just a trip out to his car and over to his agent’s office—a trip he’d made a dozen times without media interruption or anyone at all caring but his neighbors who thought he should get a better car because his made too much noise. So he wasn’t expecting the solar-flare bright flash of a camera snapping his photograph as soon as he opened his door.

Paparazzi had better people to follow than him—a lot better people, in fact—but there they were snapping a billion pictures of him cover his face and scooting past them to get to his car. He had to inch out of the driveway at a snail’s pace for fear of killing one of them (accidentally, of course).

At the Starbucks he _always_ stopped at, Margot behind the counter gave him a wide-eyed look with her face all pale and cleared her throat uncomfortably when she said, “hi Jared.” So yeah, she’d seen the interview.

Jared thought it was just better if he didn’t respond to her staring. He made it to his car and to his agent’s office before he was attacked by the media.

“Do you have a boyfriend!”

“How long have you been a homosexual?”

“Mr. Pada—” (They really couldn’t say his name. It wasn’t even a hard name to say.)

“How do you feel about gay rights?”

“Do you know Ellen?”

Jared ignored them and went into the building. Once he was through the doors they were all milling around in circles looking like sharks in chum-filled water just waiting for something tasty to snack on. He stood behind the glass windows and stared at the sudden insane turn his life had taken.

\--

Jared loved his agent because she was shrewd, careful and above all deeply invested in his success. She didn’t hold his hand and she didn’t sugar-coat the truth and when he showed up in her office she cleared her throat, looked at him very seriously and said, “what did I tell you about keeping secrets from me? You can keep secrets from your girlfriend. You can keep secrets from your Mother—you can even keep secrets from Jesus himself but you _cannot_ keep secrets from me. Damn it— _Jared_ , what kind of _idiot_ tells Chad _Michael Murray_ that they’re a closet homosexual?”

“I’m not gay,” Jared said. He felt paradoxically like a very small child sitting in the principal’s office while also feeling like he was going to break the chair he was sitting in because it was small and low to the ground.

Leslie (his agent) gave him a rough-hard-terrible stare and then clucked her tongue. “I’ve got to be honest kid, your saving grace might be that almost nobody knows you even exist. I mean—if you were more famous than this, your career might tank right now. I think we might be able to save it—”

The door opened and his publicist (a somewhat bloodthirsty woman named Charlotte) came in with fire in her eyes. “I want to sue them all—this is unbelievable. Can you believe this?”

Jared could not believe this.

“You’re not gay, are you?” Charlotte asked, “I mean—I don’t care if you are but if you aren’t I am going to sue everyone. If you are I’m going to wring your neck and let you die in a raging meteor shit-storm that the media is going to descend upon your life. They’ve been looking for another good cause to latch themselves onto. You know how short the average American’s attention span is? Do you Jared?”

“Uh,” he started.

“Shorter than that. You can be a gay golden boy for a few minutes—bring awareness and some bullshit and then you’re out—you’re too damn big to be the cute gay best friend, man. Ask your agent.”

“She’s right,” Leslie said. She was leaning back in her chair behind the desk. “America’s not ready for a gay best friend as tall as you.”

Charlotte nodded gravely and then they both stared at him.

“I’m not gay,” he said. (He said it but he wasn’t even sure that they were listening even if they did nod and launch into an attack strategy about how they were going to handle this mess.)

“He’s still on for Supernatural isn’t he?” Charlotte asked.

“Yeah,” Leslie said, “definitely. Unless he’s too gay to be Sam Winchester.” They both turned to look at him like they were measuring him up for his level of gay. Whatever they decided they turned back to their battle plans and didn’t bother to include him in the discussion.

\--

The trouble with coming out in the media (even if it had been Chad outing him rather than himself) was no matter what you did after you were outed, there was just no way to get back _in_. He’d been Johnny McStraightGuy one day and the next he was living in a crystal closet because _everyone knew_ he was _completely gay_ and always had been.

It was like being declared insane—there was no way at all to prove that he was completely straight ever again. 

\--

Jared had a great family—like a really great and really supportive family that was filled to the brim with slightly insane people that he sometimes wished he wasn’t related to. Like Megan who was still in _high school_ and sending him E-mails with a list full of the people he was absolutely not allowed to date. The fact that he wasn’t gay didn’t matter when all of her Hollywood crushes were suddenly in danger.

Then there was Jeff who was a great stand-up kind of guy that dated a lot of girls before he even left the Padalecki family home and a lot more after he left the family home and seemed to be a little too damn amused by the whole situation.

“Jeff,” Jared said, “I don’t know why he thought I was gay—I don’t know why anyone would think that I’m gay.” 

He had, in fact, taken stock of his entire life and all of his belongings for any overt sign of gayness. (Because Chad Michael Murray was _not_ exactly intuitive.) Aside from the fact that he very often wore colors instead of monotone earth-tones like real men (supposedly) were supposed to do he couldn’t think of anything. Except maybe that he knew how to brush his own hair, and take a shower now and again.

“Maybe it’s the candy,” Jeff said, “I mean—we’ve all seen you go down on a unicorn lollipop, Jared.” 

It was a sad day, indeed, when even your brother was reconsidering your sexuality at the word of Chad Douchebag Murray. Jared rolled over on his bed and buried his face in the pillow and wished that he had the will power to slowly suffocate himself.

“Stop being a drama queen, princess,” Jeff said, “this’ll all be history in like a week. We all know you’re straight. Don’t worry.”

\--

Step one in the Great De-Gaying of Jared Padalecki was to have him seen in the company of his favorite female. In this case, that meant his girlfriend. The fact that both Leslie and Charlotte had seemed to forget that he had a girlfriend that he’d been dating for over a year was only a little bit disconcerting. Alexis was short, sure, and most of the time they’d spent getting to know one another and dating involved the set of Gilmore Girls (and a fairly large portion of the cast of Gilmore Girls) but still—they’d been going steady for a year.

“Jared,” Alexis said, “you’re making me nervous.”

They were out and about—doing nothing in particular. Mostly they were walking around holding hands while he looked around wildly for the insane people with cameras that were searching for a juicy picture of him making out with some twinky looking guy (or something). “Sorry,” Jared said, “it’s just—this is stupid. This is stupid, isn’t it?”

Alexis nodded with him. “Hey, did I tell you that your mother called me?”

Of course his mother had called her. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Alexis said, “she invited me back to your house for Thanksgiving. I said I’d love to go and she said that she was really glad.”

Of course she did. Alexis was a good Texan girl that would make beautiful Texan babies and they could all wallow in their lazy Texan talk and his Mother could spoil his future babies until they were brats and he had to try to straighten them out again. (Not that she did too bad with him, because she didn’t.)

\--

Step two in the Restraightening of Jared Padalecki was an official press statement that said in long-drawn out sentences and painfully politically correct paragraphs that he was most definitely a tits and vagina kind of guy.

Jared felt like if he just walked around wearing a T-shirt that said: NOT GAY it might have been more effective but both Charlotte and Leslie had assured him that press releases were the best way to go with these kinds of things.

The unfortunate truth was: the harder you tried to deny something—the more the press believed it was the truth. Jared didn’t often frequent gossip websites but the first one he found when he googled himself the day after the press release had a picture of him photoshopped into wearing a sparkly pink dress with the words I THINK THE LADY DOTH PROTEST TOO MUCH scrawled across it.

\--

Step three of resolving the Great Sexuality Crisis was exile. Only Leslie didn’t call it that when she flat out told him to get out of the city and the whole state and not to come back for a while. Vancouver was great this time of year and since he had a pilot to film and all—well, that was just convenient. 

“Just don’t gay up Sam Winchester,” Leslie said, “I mean, please, he’s got a hot girlfriend. I know his big brother is probably hotter but—gay and incestuous will not win you any fans, Jared.” Her face was so serious while she glared at him like it was his fault that he was suddenly living in a crystal closet constructed by the nameless bastard who still hadn’t returned his phone calls. “I mean, not the kind that will help your career.” Then she sent him on his way.

\--

Jared still had his job on Supernatural which was great—like really, really great. Of course, it would have been better if Eric Kripke (the show’s creator, also short) hadn’t pulled him aside to assure him that the fact that Jared was gay wasn’t going to be a problem. 

“Listen,” Eric said with a very understanding way about him. He looked like he wanted to put a hand on his shoulder or maybe his elbow (since it was closer) and Jared tried stooping a little lower just so he could if he wanted to. “We just want you to know that we respect your privacy and that we won’t tolerate any prejudice on the set. If you have any problems, feel free to tell us. We liked you before and we still like you—you’re like the perfect Sam.”

On the one hand, the fact that he was the perfect Sam was enough to make him smile. On the other hand, it was super nice of them to make sure the big gay guy understood that he wasn’t going to get bullied for liking dick except for the fact that he didn’t. Jared wanted to ask them why they hadn’t gotten or read the press release people explaining how Chad Michael Murray was a douchebag and Jared was—as it turned out—completely straight and perfectly happy with his girlfriend and tits in general. 

“I’m straight,” he said, “so that shouldn’t be a problem.”

Eric nodded at him for being a brave little soldier. Or maybe with a sad kind of heavy nod because America just wasn’t ready to accept a six and a half foot tall gay guy. Whatever he was thinking, he said, “Of course. Of course you are.” 

Jared didn’t believe that for a second.

\--

“Hey,” Jensen said when he met him the first time, “I’m Jensen.” He stuck his hand out and waited for Jared to shake it and didn’t seem to notice, care or be worried that he was touching the giant gay guy. In fact, he was all sunny-cheerful and still waiting for Jared to shake his hand. “I promise I don’t have cooties,” Jensen added.

“Yeah, sorry man,” Jared said, “Jared. So you’re Dean?” For a big brother Jensen was short and for a demon killer he was just a little too preppy. “I’m Sam.” (Of course, now that he got a good look at Jensen up close all he could think of was how his sister and his agent both thought Jensen was hot as sin.) He also had freckles and green eyes and really _shiny_ fingernails. 

“I heard,” Jensen said, “at least you’re ugly. I don’t know if I could handle you being taller and better looking than me.” He was all grins when he said it.

“Is that how this is going to be?” Jared asked. There was something about Jensen’s smile that just dug into a person and you had to be a stone not to grin back at him. “We haven’t even known each other five minutes and you’re already dying of jealousy? It’s not my fault I was blessed with good looks and talent and _height_.”

Jensen was pink when he was happy, all bright under his freckles and he nodded his head. “I think this is going to work out, gigantor.”

\--

For the record, Sam Winchester’s girlfriend was _hot_. Jared had no reason to think that she wouldn’t be but there was a difference between Leslie telling him that she was hot and actually getting to see Adrianne Palicki being sexually objectified right in front of him. 

“I’m straight,” Jared told Jeff (who was one of the few people he still talked to because Jeff was nice enough to believe him) the night after he spent a good ten hours watching Adrianne walking around in various stages of undress. “You should have seen this girl I’m working with today.”

“That’s what Google’s for, what’s her name?” Jeff was nothing if not completely practical.

“Adrianne Palicki,” Jared said, “but she was wearing this slutty nurse outfit—it was Halloween—and…”

“Yeah, she’s good looking,” Jeff agreed. “Wait, what? She was wearing a slutty nurse’s outfit? Did you take pictures? Jared, what have I told you about using your fame for good? When you meet beautiful women that are half dressed you’re supposed to send me pictures.”

Jared rubbed his forehead and huffed a sigh. “Sometimes I really wish that you weren’t my brother.”

“Blah-blah, whatever. So you thought this girl was hot. You’re straight, I get it. When are you going to move on, Jared?” Jeff was probably still going through Google for pictures of the girl which made him about as useful to talk to as a pillowcase. Except that pillowcases weren’t going to save up the images to jerk off to later.

“I’m going to sleep,” Jared said.

“Sleep well baby brother,” Jeff said.

\--

In the pilot there was a sequence where Dean comes in—(it’s dark)—and Sam attacks him because there’s an intruder in his house. Jared was a big guy and he wasn’t exactly lacking in the muscles either. Jensen was a moderately big guy—not exactly short and in other company perfectly respectably well-sized—but really he looked like he just escaped some prep school and was going to be found and dragged back by an angry nun or something.

Suffice to say, he was _not_ expecting Jensen to have the muscle to actually lay him out flat on his ass. They practiced the scene a few dozen times because—play fighting was a very precise art—and they were both guys so the play part of the play-fighting got lost in a tangle of well-meaning jabs. Jensen knocked him flat on his ass and pinned him with a grin as broad as the great state of Texas itself.

Jared was full of all kinds of conflicting thoughts about this—Jensen was just grinning like a fool down at him and then straightening back and slapping him on the cheek. “Got to move faster, sasquatch.” Then he held his hand out to him to pull him back to his feet and made it look _effortless_.

By the end of the day, Jared had been laid flat on his back by Jensen so many times he actually lost count and just came to accept that getting pinned to the ground by Jensen (or Dean really) was a normal part of his life. He still managed to look shocked every damn time though and most of it was authentic shock.

After they handed in their costumes, Jensen found him (he wore _glasses_ ). “Want to go get drinks? I mean, it’s the least I can do to make up for kicking your ass repeatedly and all.” His smile was always so friendly and inviting. He clearly would never-ever lead Jared astray.

Jared nodded, “yeah, sure—sounds good.”

\--

Two days later, Leslie called him in Vancouver.

“Jared,” she said with absolutely painful patience, “when I sent you up there it was to film a pilot. It was not to get photographed in some dingy Canadian bar hanging out with another guy. _I_ know that he’s your co-star and you know that he’s your co-star but the Internet doesn’t care. If you’re sitting next to him—he’s your boyfriend.” She paused a brief second. “Or at very least you’re fucking like rabbits. I’m not saying that you can’t hang out with him. I’m saying that you should always have a woman between you when you do.”

Jared was starting to hate the Internet but he plugged his name and Jensen’s name into the search bar anyway and it produced hundreds of pictures of Jensen practically from the day he was born up to his role on Smallville as a hopeful Mr. Lana Lang. 

(If he spent a good twenty minutes sorting through the photos it was just his little secret.)

\--

The filming of the pilot wrapped up and they were all free to go and worry at their fingernails and wait to see if it was going to be picked up. Jensen seemed remarkably unconcerned by the whole thing after the last scene when they were all packing up to go their separate ways. Jared was trying really hard to be completely cool about the whole thing but he couldn’t help but think that a show where he went around and kicked ass would help to banish away the stink of gay rumors that just wouldn’t let up.

Jensen grinned up at him again when he saw him and slipped his phone down into his pocket. “If you didn’t ruin all my hard work we should be back here in a few weeks working on the next episode.” That was a very optimistic estimation of the situation. “Come on—let’s get a drink.”

Yeah, that was just a bad idea. It was a monumentally bad idea. Like one of those bad ideas that ended with him back in the principal-like-office of his agent while she gave him a long hard look down her nose at him. Jared shrugged and searched around for a good excuse not to get a drink with Jensen and came up with nothing. “Yeah, ok. Sounds great.”

\--

So he agreed to go get a drink with Jensen but he lagged behind to call Alexis first. You know, just to run it by her first—see what she thought of the whole idea that if he were seen with another guy that everyone would think he was _totally doing him_ or something.

“Jared,” Alexis said over the phone, “stop worrying about it. Nobody _cares_. I know you’re not gay and you know you’re not gay.” That would have been about a hundred times more reassuring if he couldn’t hear the lingering question at the end of the sentence that went something like (you’re not gay, right?). She was far away from him and she had to be thinking about how they hadn’t really had sex yet because he was a gentleman that liked to get to know a person before he had sex with them. Then there he was out with Jensen _at a bar_ and calling to ask her if that was too gay.

Jared completely understood her unresolved doubts about his sexuality. According to TV and the Internet, they should have been getting naked and humping like dogs since about their third date (or first, depending on how slutty Alexis was). (Then again, according to the internet he had an affair with Milo on set that ended badly. Jared liked Milo just fine but he’d never even had the slightly sexual thought about him.)

“I can’t stop worrying about it,” he said, “and Leslie said—”

Alexis sighed. “Jared. Have fun with Jensen. Nothing’s going to happen.” Then she added, “I love you.”

Jared smiled and sighed. “I love you too.” Then he went to find Jensen in the bar and proceeded to drown all his worries.

\--

Jensen was a great guy and Jared was a babbling drunk. By their powers combined they ended up falling into Jensen’s hotel room after hours. Jared laid across the couch in the room with his arms and legs hanging off wherever they landed because he was just not worried enough to move them back into some semblance of order.

“How do you do it?” he asked.

Jensen had always been good to him. In fact, out of all the people on set, Jensen might have been the one person who was oblivious to the fact that Jared lived in a crystal closet constructed by Chad Michael Doucheurry. He never treated Jared like he was gay and he never asked for fashion advice or gave him the wink-nudge or looked repentant when a random off-color joke mentioned people of the gay persuasion. That was just stupid, because even if Jared were gay, he’d still have a sense of humor.

“Do what?” Jensen asked. His eyes were half-mast and half-drunk. He looked relaxed and lazy and collapsed back into a chair with a tall glass of water. “Hold my liquor?”

Jared snorted at that, “hold what liquor? You barely drank anything!” He tipped his head so it was almost falling off the couch and he could see Jensen past all of his various body parts. “How do you look so straight all the time?” 

Jensen swallowed his water down the wrong pipe and ended up hacking it back up all over his hand and pant leg before he grabbed for a spare napkin that was sitting in the pile of yesterday’s take-out and wiping his face. “How do I what?” he asked with his voice all tight and strained from the hacking.

“I’m not gay,” Jared flopped his arms around. “The whole _world_ thinks I’m gay, man. All because of Chad and his stupid interview telling them that I was—and I’m not. I’ve never even acted gay. I don’t look gay—do I? I mean, when you look at me do you think ‘oh I bet he sucks dick and loves it’. I mean—I don’t care if people do it and like it but I’m _not gay_.”

“You’re still worried about that?” Jensen asked.

“You knew?” Jared demanded, “you knew that everyone thought I was gay all this time and you didn’t say anything? Jensen! You’re supposed to have my back, man.”

“But you’re not gay,” Jensen pointed out. He sounded so smug about it too. 

“Yeah, I’m not. But you could have told me you knew.” Then again, _everyone knew_ so Jared didn’t even know why he’d assumed that Jensen wouldn’t. Jensen was part of everyone. He was just on the nicer half of everyone and not the half like his sister who sent him strange e-mails threatening him if he turned Jensen gay before she had her chance to get her claws into him and that kind of thing. 

“I have no idea how I look so straight, J.” Jensen picked up the glass of water again and tossed the napkin onto the table. 

“You’ve got to help me, man,” Jared said, “I’m serious. It’s driving me crazy.”

Jensen snorted. “Go to sleep, Jared.” Then he got up and headed for the bed.


	2. Chapter 2

Back in LA, the world continued right on moving without him. In fact, it was almost like he’d never left to go film a pilot. Except that by the time he came back the number of paparazzi concerned about him was whittled down to maybe one straggler that clearly had no need for a decent paycheck. He sorted through a few weeks worth of fliers and mail and flopped on his couch to marinate in the simple joy of doing nothing at all.

That lasted for about a day before his brother called him _cackling_. “Oh man—Paris Hilton called you gay, man. Wait—wait, listen to this.” Any time Jeff was so choked up laughter he couldn’t actually speak there was no point in talking to him. “She said, this is beautiful, she said: Jared was a perfect gentleman, all my gay friends are perfect gentleman.” Then Jeff dissolved into braying laughter.

Jared thought he was perfectly justified in hanging up on him.

\--

They didn’t have to wait too long for the news that the pilot had been picked up. Leslie informed him that it was his one chance at saving his career and he better not fuck it up. He promised that he would do his very best not to do so.

Jensen was all grins when they met again. “So, Paris Hilton and Chad Michael Murray think you’re gay. You really need to work on getting better friends, man.” He slapped him on the back. It wasn’t anything that everyone else in the universe hadn’t already made references to (he was becoming a common punch line lately) but when Jensen did it—it seemed almost friendly. “Come on, lighten up. I’m sure Britney Spears will do something stupid again any day now and nobody will even remember you exist.”

\--

Jeff was never good at listening. Jared called him anyway because they were brothers and even if Jeff couldn’t listen he could _pretend_ to listen.

“It’s always there—the other day, on set, this guy asked me which tie he should wear on his date and the wardrobe girls keep telling me that just because I’m blessed with built-in fashion sense doesn’t mean I know better than them.”

Jeff hummed his agreement and kept on playing whatever video game he’d been working on whenever he answered the phone a good twenty minutes ago.

“I’m don’t have fashion sense!”

“Of course you don’t,” Jeff said reassuringly.

“You know who has fashion sense? Jensen has fashion sense—he’s straight. If he can be straight and have fashion sense why can’t I?” So that didn’t make sense at all because the whole reason the ladies in the wardrobe department thought he had fashion sense was because they thought he was gay. 

“It’s a mystery of the modern world, Jared.” Then something exploded and Jeff started cursing at the screen. “Are you about done? Not that I don’t love listening to you complain about your heterosexuality for like the fifteenth thousand time but I’m kind of busy.”

“Tell me how to make people believe I’m straight,” Jared said.

“I don’t know—do what straight guys do. Drink, blech and scratch yourself. Of course coming onto women also helps. When’s the last time you even got laid, Jared?”

Jared wasn’t going to dignify that with an answer. He huffed and mumbled good bye to Jeff and slept like shit the whole night so he looked like shit the whole next day—which worked for Sam, really. Thank God for small miracles and all.

\--

“Hey man,” Jensen said when he took his seat next to him, “I just saw Sera—she was talking about Sam’s big gay love for Dean. Maybe you should try to tone down your rainbow.” He had the world’s biggest jackass grin on his face as he stage-whispered at Jared. “I mean, I know I’m pretty but enough’s enough, man.”

Jared glared at him or tried to glare at him. The trouble with glaring at a grinning Jensen was that you just _couldn’t_ do it because it was like kicking a puppy; a big, adorable, green-eyed, spotted puppy. “You think you’re funny, don’t you?”

“The first step is admitting you’ve got a problem, Jared. Lighten up.” Then he slapped his arm and straightened up in his chair. “And the second step is to stop making me look gay.”

“Bitch, you wish, you’ve got nothing on my fabulousness,” Jared said. He was joking but the assistant director (Stephanie?) who happened to walk up just about the time he said that gave him a reassuring smile.

“Good for you,” she said, “it’s about time we stopped ignoring the elephant in the room.” Then she told them they were needed on their marks and walked back toward the set. 

Jensen managed to keep it together until she was a few feet away before he burst into gales of laughter that made him double over and tear up. Jared pulled Sam’s hoodie over his head and tried to pretend that he was invisible like Harry-freaking-Potter. “I hate you,” he hissed at Jensen.

Jensen just laughed harder.

\--

Jared didn’t really think that Sera had this thing for Sam wanting Dean but that didn’t stop him from obsessively watching his every move and every glance while he was acting until it gave him headache from concentrating so hard on not checking out his big brother’s ass. It should have been easy to do really since he was tall and Dean was shorter and it would have taken more effort and forethought to stare at Dean’s ass curved bow-legs than to not stare at them.

“Hey buddy,” Jensen said while they were waiting on their marks, “eyes up here.” He was just pink with his own clever amusement. “I know Sammy’s got the big gay love and all but Dean doesn’t swing that way.”

“Oh fuck you,” Jared said.

Jensen just cracked up with chuckles and the crew around them joined in with him. “You’re going to need to get me some flowers and chocolates first, sasquatch.” He winked at him and then cleared his throat and sank himself back down into Dean’s character in a way that made Jared hate him all the more for being able to flip a switch like that.

\--

“So Milo’s got your back,” Jensen told him while they were standing around waiting. “Apparently the question of your sexuality came up in an interview and he said that it was none of his business.”

The fact that Jensen was deriving such joy from this almost (very nearly) made him an asshole.

“Did you pick the wings off flies as a child?” Jared asked.

“Did you braid your Barbie’s hair?” Jensen asked back. “I bet you had the dream house, didn’t you?” He nudged Jared with his elbow in a way that was so damn inoffensive it was damn near mind-boggling. (His eyelashes were like a mile long and curved up just like every woman wished theirs would do naturally. It was never so obvious as it was when Jensen looked at him out of the side of his eyes and smiled.) “It’s ok, man. I won’t judge you.”

“You’re such a freak,” Jared said but he gave in and smiled back at Jensen.

“There’s my boy—we’ll get you through this yet.”

Jared hugged an arm around his shoulders just because he couldn’t help it—because Jensen was a good friend even if he was getting entirely too much joy out of the whole situation. It was just his dumb luck that Sera happened to walk past them at that exact moment and her whole face lit up with the joy of possibility.

\--

Everyone had doubts. Nobody was really one hundred percent straight anymore. Even if they decided on straight—they had to have seen an attractive person of the same sex and thought to themselves ‘damn that is one fine looking person and I would like to lick them everywhere’. It was just the nature of sexuality.

Or something.

\--

The first rainbow pin was a fluke so Jared didn’t pay much attention to it. The second rainbow pin was just a fashion statement. By the time five of the ladies had them and one of the big lighting guys was sporting it pinned to his shirt sleeve Jared figured he had enough reason to be surly about it. He could have tried asking any one of the many people that were wearing them but there was really only one person that could have been responsible for it.

“You made everyone wear rainbow pins,” Jared said at Jensen after he slapped open the door to his trailer. Jensen was slouching on the little couch in there with the script revisions in one hand a drink in the other. “You know, that’s a real dick move. I already told you that I’m not gay.”

“Jared, I didn’t make anyone wear anything,” Jensen said. He was wearing glasses though. (Jared loved those glasses.) They were kind of cute. “Relax.”

“I’m losing my mind!” Jared shouted at him. “I’m not gay, do you understand that? I’m not gay and my sister is sending me death threats about seducing you while the extra two days ago asked me out on a date and the lighting guy was telling me one of his cousins was gay too and my agent thinks that I’m unemployable and my publicist thinks we could use this to my advantage—I’m not even gay. So stop with the jokes and the rainbow pins and—”

Jensen blinked at him. “Ok.”

“Ok,” Jared said.

“Tom’s having a party this weekend if you need an excuse to get drunk,” Jensen offered as he turned to leave. “Plenty of straight people for you to talk to. You should ask Tom how he manages to look straight all the time when he really wants to jump Mike.”

“What?” Jared said.

“I’m kidding,” Jensen said, “but booze, I was serious about that.”

\--

Michael Rosenbaum was just about the dictionary definition of the Wrong Person to Ask for Advice. Sure, he was older than he looked, but he was also just about as mature as you would guess. Jared heard it from a reliable source that Michael was stuck in permanent frat-boy mode and might never-ever outgrow it. Since the source was reliable, Jared was inclined to believe them. However, Michael was available and Jared was a babbling drunk.

“And then Chad told everyone that I was gay—on TV—in front of everyone. So everyone thinks I’m gay, man. My agent thinks I’m gay she keeps telling me that nobody wants to employ a giant gay guy. I’m not even gay—I’ve never even done anything gay. I’m completely heterosexual.” He let his head fall down so it was thumped against the table. He kept one hand on his glass so it didn’t go somewhere without him. “Why won’t anyone believe me?”

Michael was nodding right along with his words. “Fly home, have sex with your woman and you’ll feel better. Oh—or better yet, fly home, make a sex tape with your woman and leak it on the internet. I mean, they’ll have to believe you’re straight if you have a straight sex tape right?”

Jared blinked at him. “I can’t do that!”

“Sure you can. Who’s your girlfriend? Look—if she won’t do it I know some people that—” As unsurprising as it was that Michael knew some people that would make a sex tape with him on demand, Jared wasn’t inclined to put his sex life on the internet. (Not even to set the record straight, pun not intended but convenient.)

“Mike, Mike—” Jared reached across the table to grab him by the shoulder, “look, that’s the not the problem. The problem is—we don’t have sex. Or haven’t. We haven’t had sex. Yet.”

Michael blinked at him. “How long have you been dating this girl?”

“A year,” Jared said.

“Oh you’re _gay_ ,” Michael said. “I don’t care if this girl looks like an impressionistic painting—if you’ve been dating for a year and you haven’t gotten any yet you are so gay. You’re like super-gay. That’s unbelievable. You’re like gold-star gay.”

“I’m not gay!” Jared shouted at him.

“No, you’re super-gay,” Michael countered. “Damn, man. That makes my balls blue just thinking about it.” 

\--

Jared flew down to see Alexis for the weekend because Michael was full of shit but he was completely and totally right about the whole gold-star-gay thing. (He’d looked it up on the Internet and discovered that Urban Dictionary was a scary and terrifying yet hilarious thing and that someone had defined his name as ‘one who is gay’. He looked up Jensen and someone had defined him as ‘a hotass; walking sex’ which wasn’t fair.)

“We need to have sex,” Jared said as soon as they were indoors and away from anyone that might have a camera and/or any other type of audiovisual equipment.

Alexis set her purse down on the table and cleared her throat gently. “Jared,” she said carefully, “are you okay? You haven’t been the same since Chad told everyone you were gay and now you want to have sex?”

“We should have sex,” he said, “don’t you want to have sex? I mean—other couples that have been dating for a year are having sex.”

The way she looked at him made him feel more insane than the amount of effort it took to not stare at Jensen’s ass on set all day long. When she folded both her hands on the back of the chair pushed in right next to her he got the distinct impression she was about to let him down easy. “Jared, of course I want to have sex with you but not because you think it’ll prove you’re not gay.” She gave him a worried look. “I want it to be because you want to—because we’re in love.”

Oh God and he found the one prudish girl in Hollywood. He huffed and shrugged. “Yeah, ok—I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.” He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her. “Want to watch some TV or something?”

“I’ll make some popcorn,” she said.

So they watched a movie and somewhere in the back of his mind he could feel Mike sneering at him about it.

\--

Come Monday he was back at work with his own personal Pride parade expanded by another ten people up-to-and-including Sera who gave him a suspicious smile and Kim who clapped him on the back in an encouraging way. Jensen wasn’t wearing one but that was only because Dean probably didn’t support Jared in his big gay adventures.

Jared made it through three takes and then Jensen looked over at him while the crew worked to reset the shot and said, “so how’d it go with Alexis?” Jensen was just trying to be a friend, he was supportive and he had been trying all along to make light of a stupid situation but it was just too-much-all-at-once.

“Would you just leave it alone?” he demanded, “you and everyone else and _Michael Rosenbaum_. You know just because I haven’t had sex with her yet doesn’t mean that I’m gay. And just because I stare at your ass doesn’t mean I’m gay either—you walk funny, it’s really hard not to notice and I don’t even know what I’m doing anymore man—I have no idea—you should have seen her face when I all but attacked her” (ok, he was exaggerating), “with demands for sex because _someone_ told me that it would make me more straight. This is not ok! It’s not funny either.”

Jensen blinked—which was becoming a thing that Jensen did after Jared shouted at him—and then licked his lips. “You listened to Rosenbaum? Bad move.”

“What?” Jared demanded, “what really? You have no idea what I’m going through right now—half the internet thinks you’re made of something—lickable and the definition of my name is GAY.”

“Jared, I’m gay,” Jensen said.

Jared stared at him, like really stared at him. Like really-really-really stared at him and went back through everything he’d ever known about Jensen. Good at sports, good looking, good with the girls, good at drinking, good at joking around, great at acting, excellent at pretending to have sex with a girl all things considered and— “I’m sorry, what?”

“I’m gay,” Jensen said, “everyone knows. Not exactly a secret and if you couldn’t find that out on the Internet you’re not looking in the right places. Look—I know you’re going through a shitty time right now and I don’t want to make anything more difficult for you but have you ever considered the reason you’re freaking out is because you are gay and you’re in denial.”

“No I’m not,” Jared said.

Jensen gave him a look that called him a liar. “After what you’ve been through, coming out for real will not be that hard.”

“But I’m _not gay_!” Jared shouted.

Jensen sighed and shook his head, set the script he’d been glancing on back down on the chair and then his cup over on something sturdy looking. “This is for your own good.”

“What are yo—” talking about? Or maybe doing? Jared still had no idea what the hell Jensen was talking about but he damn well knew what he was doing because he was kissing Jared. Right there, just like that, he had his hands on Jared’s face, thumb smoothing along his cheek like trying to gentle a skittish colt and he was kissing him—hell, he was tonguing him. Jensen Ackles was tonguing him and Jared only had enough brain power left in his whole body to wrap an arm around him and tip his head a little to the side so when their mouths slid together they fit almost perfectly.

Not that birds were singing or the world stopped or everything in the universe was suddenly, sparklingly perfect but _oh hell_ for the first time like _ever_ , Jared _got it_. He curled his hand into the back of Jensen’s shirt and fisted it up and pressed closer and wanted more and—

Someone dropped a light or a plate or a piano to the left and jerked Jared back to reality and out of the Disney-Princess-final-kiss headspace. He pulled away from Jensen so fast he knocked the chair to the side over and the assistant director (Becky? Someone?) turned back to look at him.

“I’m fine,” he said, “it’s fine, I was just—he was just—there was just nothing happening. Nothing at all. I’ve got to go—to the bathroom—I’ll be back.” He pointed at Jensen who was just grinning at him like a smug bitch. “You stay there. They need you—for the scene. Stay.”

“You sure?” Jensen asked, “I could come with you.”

“I’m sure. Stay. Stay right there.” Then he ran for it.

\--

“Jared!” his mother said with wide open arms as soon as she saw him enter the front door his family home. She smelled like pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce and the whole house had that smell of slow-roasting turkey that made him feel suddenly and overwhelmingly hungry. She held onto him extra tight and then leaned back to cup her hands around his face. “Look at you, I swear you get bigger every time I see you.” Then he was summarily pushed aside so she could get her hands on Alexis the bearer of her future grandchildren. “Oh my goodness, you are so much prettier in person. Just look at you—I swear.”

His father stood there exchanging glances with his own kids because they all four knew that Mama was calculating Punnett squares. (And this one would have Alexis’ eyes and Jared’s chin and…) “Good to see you again, son.”

“Did you bring me an autograph like I asked?” Megan asked. She, in fact, asked for an autograph of every famous or semi-famous person he happened to come across. He was a good brother so he made sure that everyone he met signed something for her. 

“It’s in my bag,” he said. 

Jeff didn’t say a thing, just slapped him on the back and squeezed his shoulder. Once Mama let Alexis into the house, they carried their stuff upstairs to his bedroom.

\--

Mama got Alexis in the kitchen while the food was cooking and shoved family albums at her so she would have a full grasp of what kind of beautiful babies she could make with Jared. (Except that there was no making babies because they hadn’t even had sex yet.) Jared hid outside on the porch and tried very hard not to think about anything at all, much less about some guy that kissed him a week ago that was miles and miles and miles away right now.

His father found him out there and offered him a beer. 

“Thanks,” Jared said.

“You look like you’re thinking too hard,” his father said. “Anything I can do to help? You know I used to be good at listening.”

“It’s nothing,” Jared said (which was a lie and he’d never been good at lying to his Papa). “I’m just thinking about work.” (That was only technically slightly less of a lie than the first thing.)

His father gave him an arched brow and then took a drink of his coffee. It was the Papa Padalecki way of saying _I know you’re lying, it’s ok, I can wait_. They drank their coffee in peace before his Mama called them back into the house and the whole family plus Jeff’s girlfriend and Alexis sat down for a family meal. 

Everyone was chattering, passing food around and his mother was talking about grandbabies and supplying enough subtle hints he was surprised that Alexis did pop up pregnant just from brainwashing. Megan held out a bowl of potatoes toward him and wrinkled up her forehead at him. “You want some potatoes?” she asked.

“I’m gay,” he said. It wasn’t—like at all—what he meant to say and from the white expression on Megan’s face it wasn’t exactly what she was expecting to hear either. In fact she was holding the potatoes still and everyone else at the table had gone dead silent and just stared at him with wide-round eyes.

(So much for coming out twice being easier.)

“Uh,” Megan said and then set the potatoes on the table.

“What’d you say?” Alexis asked.

“He didn’t say he wanted potatoes,” Megan remarked under her breath.

Jared turned to look at Alexis and then at his Mom who was holding a spoonful of peas perched precariously over her plate and his father who had his fork halfway to his mouth but there was nothing on it anymore. “Mom, Dad—uh, everyone—Alexis. I’m gay.”

Wow, and that didn’t feel like he thought it was going to either. He licked his lips and looked around at them and Alexis looked like she was going to burst into tears and his mother had set the spoon back in the bowl. “Well,” his Mom said.

“Of course you are,” Jeff said, “haven’t I always told you that?” He didn’t seem bothered at all which left his father and his mother and Alexis to worry about. 

Alexis cleared her throat and wiped her eyes with her thumb and tried to smile, “well, at least I didn’t hear it from Chad this time.” 

Nobody laughed.

“Excuse me,” Jared said and pushed himself away from the table, “I’ll—be—back.”

\--

“You better answer the phone you asshole,” Jared snarled at his phone as he stabbed through his contacts until he found Jensen’s phone number. Once the phone was ringing he was pacing back and forth in the backyard, kicking at clumps of the grass and just listening to the teeth-grating noise in his ear. As soon as it picked up Jared was shouting at it, “you asshole! You told me that it was going to be okay. What the hell do you know about anything? You think you can just kiss someone and rearrange their whole sexuality and that it’s going to be _okay_? I can’t believe I ever believed you—I can’t believe I let you kiss me. I can’t _believe_ I had sexual fantasies about you.”

The voice on the other end was not Jensen but a girl clearing her throat. “Um,” she said, “hold that thought, I’m just going to go get Jensen. Don’t hang up, Jared—ok, sweetie? Just hang on.” Jared had never met or heard Danneel but he figured that if she was a girl and she was answering Jensen’s phone she had to be Danneel or maybe his baby sister. He really, really hoped that it wasn’t his baby sister.

“Fuck my life,” Jared said and hit the end button on the phone. “Fuck my life so hard.” He fell back into the chair on the back porch and bent forward with his face cradled in his hands and resisted the overwhelming urge to just bawl like a baby.

\--

It was his Papa that came out to find him. He brought a plate of hot apple pie and vanilla ice cream with him and turned on the back porch light so they weren’t sitting in the darkness. He handed Jared the plate and then sat back in his own chair and got nice and comfortable.

“Thanks,” Jared said. He felt kind of like dirt—like really awful dirt—but he couldn’t bring himself to go back in the house and face everyone and he didn’t even want to know what they must have said after he left either. Maybe something about how he’d spent the past how many ever months lying to himself and them without even realizing and how Chad was right after all and—well, he didn’t want to think about that. 

“Your Mom wanted to have it,” his Papa said. He stretched a little and resettled. “Your brother took Alexis to a hotel for the night. She wanted to tell you that she’s not upset but she thought you’d need some space.” 

Yeah that sounded like her. He pushed the ice cream around on the plate and considered what kind of crazy world he lived in that he didn’t even feel like eating. 

“So,” Papa said, “you want to tell me about it?”

“Nothing to tell,” Jared said, “I mean—that I haven’t already said. I’m gay. That’s kind of all there is to it.” He looked over at his Papa because he was brave enough to do that and found his dad looking right back at him the way he always had. Same pride, same love, same shake of his head like he couldn’t believe his son could be so smart and so dumb all simultaneously. 

“You know, your mother isn’t going to let up about the grandchildren. I’m pretty sure she’s in there researching surrogates and adoption right now.” He looked so at ease with it all. Then he nodded at the plate. “Eat your pie, Jared.”

He nodded and let out a breath that he didn’t even know he’d been holding for months. “There is one thing,” he said. His father made an interested noise. “I think I might…like this guy.”

“I think that’s a part of being gay,” Papa said, “I always thought it was.” He was teasing and his smile was just infectious and easy and then he reached over to squeeze his shoulder and Jared couldn’t resist the urge to stand up and hug him.

\--

The flight back to LA was just about the most uncomfortable flight he’d ever taken in his entire life. Not that Alexis gave him a hard time about it but because she wasn’t giving him a hard time about it. She should have been sitting next to him quietly judging him the entire flight and she seemed more interested in the novel she’d bought in the waiting area than in him.

It was just insulting, actually, that he’d come out to her and the biggest reaction he’d gotten was a few tears right after and a disappearing act and now she was just fine. He was a completely and total mess and she was idly reading her book like it didn’t even _matter_ to her at all.

\--

The cab ride from the airport to his apartment in LA was just about the most unpleasant one in the history of cab rides. Once he got home the overwhelming gray thing that felt like it was crushing him just kept slowly smothering him to death.

He flopped back on his couch and put his feet up on the table and tried really hard not to burst into tears. Not that he was the kind of guy that burst into tears on a regular basis but he pretty much figured that this one of those cases where nobody was going to think less of him. He picked at his T-shirt and his jeans and searched around on the couch cushions for his TV remote but still couldn’t find it. 

In the end, he gave in and bawled like a newborn.

\--

Chad _finally_ came back to find him while he was out getting coffee at Starbucks. It probably wasn’t entirely intentional that he found him so much as he happened to be in the same place at the same time and pushed his glasses up away from his eyes and cocked a huge smile and said, “J-rod!”

For the record, everything about Chad grated on Jared’s nerves past his ability to cope. “Go away,” he said. He took his coffee and headed for the door.

Chad (who never had an ounce of common sense in his life) followed him out. “Hey, what’s with the cold shoulder lately?” Chad asked.

Jared was going to keep walking because there were bad ideas and then there were bad ideas and trying to talk reason to Chad when he felt Unfairly Treated was one of those cosmically large bad ideas. So he kept walking and Chad kept following at a slow run.

“Is it because of the gay thing? Jared—I know I should have checked with you first but—”

That was where his resistance broke. He spun around in a circle and Chad stopped short of following him three feet away and looked like he had suddenly found himself in a lion’s cage without warning. “You should have checked with me first?” Jared repeated, “maybe you should have just _kept your mouth shut_ you asshole!” There was a lot more that he wanted to say—like hours and hours of things he wanted to scream at Chad about how he started a little quarter-sized snowball that turned into an avalanche that destroyed the pleasant ski-cabin his life used to be. 

“Hey, hey,” Chad said with his hands up (he’d been hit too many times in his life), “I didn’t say anything that wasn’t true. Maybe I shouldn’t have told everyone—I mean, I didn’t think about it and that interviewer was really hot. I probably would have told her anything she asked and she was super excited when I told her that you were gay—I mean, I totally could have hit that.”

Wow, Chad was so stupid there were no words for it. “Yeah, thanks. So I’m gay.”

Chad stopped babbling to look at him. “What, for real?”

“Yes,” Jared shouted, “for real, Chad.”

He realized a few minutes later that he was shouting on a suddenly crowded street in a city that was practically built of cameras. He had no doubt in his mind that his screaming confession was going to be on the Internet in less than a half an hour. So he turned his back on Chad and kept walking.

\--

Sure enough, Leslie called him less than an hour after he shouted at Chad. She was gentle enough but he felt scraped raw anyway. “Oh kid,” she said, “you know you fucked yourself over. What have I told you—keep your temper tantrums indoors.”

“Sorry,” he said. (Mostly he wasn’t.)

“I wish you would have hit him, at least,” Leslie said. “I’ll call Charlotte and see what we can do as far as damage control.” Then she paused for a long second and when she said something it again, it was more supportive and kind than he’d ever heard her before. “It’ll be ok, Jared. Kripke loves you so you’ll have Supernatural as long as it lasts.”

Right, great.

\--

Jared must have fallen asleep on the couch because he woke up there with someone pounding on the front door like the house was on fire. “What?” he yelled at it even though he didn’t think the door was going to answer or the person doing the pounding could even hear him. He pushed and pulled himself up and shuffled over to the door.

The brief resurgence of paparazzi seemed to have given up the camp-out and moved on with their days (or were better at hiding and more tenacious than he gave them credit for). He opened the door and of all the people he thought would be standing there, he didn’t expect to see Jensen Ackles staring at him like he was sure Jared was half-dead or something.

“You asshole,” Jensen said, “you _asshole_. First, you call my phone on _Thanksgiving_ and yell at Danneel—she says hi by the way—and freak her _and me_ out and then you turn your phone off…”

“I didn’t feel like talking,” Jared mumbled. He closed the door since Jensen was all the way in his house and dropping his bag on the floor all self-assured of being asked to stay.

“For three days! I had no idea how to get a hold of you. I don’t know where you live in San Antonio so you’re just damn lucky that the name Padalecki isn’t exactly _common_. I managed to get someone on the phone at your house—which I’m pretty sure was a banshee because all she did was scream into the phone after I said my name was Jensen Ackles.”

“Yeah that was Megan,” Jared said.

“After that, I got to talk to your mother who asked me what _my intentions_ toward her son were,” Jensen was flailing his arms around dramatically as he spoke, “I don’t even know what my intentions were. I was just trying to get _you on the phone_ to make sure you hadn’t thrown yourself in front of traffic. She wouldn’t let me get an word in until she’d laid down all the rules about dating her baby—I don’t even know how she knew I might want to date you—”

“Well she’s a Mom,” Jared pointed out. He was trying to pay attention to the rest of the tirade but Jensen had said ‘might want to date you’ and it was harder to concentrate on the next parts.

“So I had to promise that I would never disrespect you and that if you got sick I’d be there to take care of you and then your father finally rescued the phone from her and told me that you’d come back here. Your number is _unlisted_ and there is no damn way to figure out where you live. I had to call Kripke, Jared. I had to _call Eric Kripke_ who wouldn’t even tell me where you were because he didn’t know.”

“How’d you find me?” Jared asked.

“Sera,” Jensen said and put his hands on his hips. He took in a breath and let it out again. “So, you outed yourself.” He just stood there like Superman staring at him and waiting for some response that wasn’t stupid and Jared had nothing.

“You want to date me?” he asked.

Jensen’s grin was all pink and he shrugged. “I mean, I did rearrange your sexuality and all. It’s the least I could do.” Then he looked around the living room and absently rubbed his ear, “seriously what’s up with your sister?”

“She thinks you’re a hotass,” Jared said and then pushed his hands down into his front pockets. “You want to date me?” He was going to work around that in a minute—he was pretty sure—but really he wanted to marinate in that for a minute because Jensen wanted to date him. 

“I’m not saying it again,” Jensen said. 

Jared took another shuffling step forward and grinned like a loon. “Jensen, you’re so _sweet_.”

“Don’t even start. Don’t look at me like that—Padalecki—don’t you—” But it was too late, Jared had both arms around him in a giant-squid-hug and there was nothing Jensen could do about it but stand there and accept it. “I’m not comfortable with this.”

“Hush, we’re having a moment,” Jared said.

“I’d rather be having some of your sexual fantasies,” Jensen said quietly against his shoulder, “I just thought I’d mention that if you thought I rearranged your sexuality with that kiss you’ve got a lot to learn.” He was smiling though, talking big and ignoring the fact that he’d called _Eric Kripke_ just to try to find out where to find Jared. He did kiss his shoulder though and then pushed his head against him to get him away. 

“I don’t know, man—if you want to get into these pants,” and he slapped his hands against his hips, “you’re going to have to work for it.”

Jensen snorted.

“I can hold out a long time,” Jared said, “ask any of my girlfriends. I can hold out forever.”

Jensen lifted an eyebrow at that and then cleared his throat, stepped forward enough that he was leaning in against the side of Jared’s face and said, “I suck dick and I _love_ it.” The words were just _wet_ and _naughty_ against his cheek and then he stepped back. He grinned with that ‘aw shucks’ kind of shrug like he could just say those words and then act nonchalant about it and Jared couldn’t even _process thoughts_.

Jensen smirked at him. “Like I said, sasquatch, you’ve got a _lot_ to learn.”


End file.
